New Stuff

Let me be the first to admit that I joined Stampin' Up! as a Demonstrator 5 years ago (in October) for the discount.  I know I'm not the only one to have seen a Stampin' Up! Catalogue and thought:  "I want it ALL!"  

Can you relate?

Naturally, I am slowly amassing a large collection of papercrafting tools.

The #1, Holy Grail of paper crafting tools is of course - The Perfect Paper Trimmer.

Well, yesterday I received a big brown box from Stampin' Up!  with my latest order  and I finally had a chance to try out the new Rotary Arm attachment-thingy for the Stampin' Trimmer.  (I also purchased a new trimmer so I can have one with the Rotary blade attached all the time, handy for classes!)

I was not prepared for the pure awesomeness.

Don't believe me?  Watch the video!

I love it!  I can keep all the special blades (there's a couple of different ones) in the handy compartment on the back of the trimmer too.

Here is a project I've made with the new Rotary Trimmer, and some other new things!

This card features one of the a la carte stamps available currently - (Christmas Star 132813), which I stamped on the Gold Foil Sheet (Holiday Mini 132622 $6.95) with Versamark and then sprinkled with Heat & Stick powder, which I melted with my heat gun until it was sticky, then sprinkled the super-sparkly Gold Stampin' Glitter (Holiday Mini 132205 $13.95, comes with silver too!) and heat set.  I cut out the star easilly with my paper snips and affixed it to the card with stampin' dimensionals.
I used the small wave rotary blade on my trimmer for the small scallop edge on the edges of the DSP and Cherry Cobbler card stock.  The sentiment, stamped in Cherry Cobbler classic ink is from Embellished Events.

Stamps:  Embellished Events; Christmas Star
Paper:  Gold Foil, Cherry Cobbler A4, Seasons of Style DSP stack
Fibres:  Linen thread
Other:  Heat tool, Heat & stick powder, Gold Stampin' Glitter, Paper Snips, Stampin' Rotary Trimmer, Small Wave blade.

As always, you can order these products from me!

I am in research & development at the moment, playing with new products to come up with class ideas (once the children are back at school), etc.  So watch this space (and my Facebook page) for details to come!

Some girly cards and my son's Halloween card!

Hello!

I'm feeling in a girly mood, and I had some pretty DSP (designer series paper) lying around, so I've experimented with some "girly" cards:  the first two have almost no stamping at all!

Hmm.  Not sure why this ended up sideways.  

This little bird was embossed with my SU dye ink  by inking up my stamp in Versamark watermark ink (clear ink used in embossing) and then dipping the stamp into my Groovy Guava dye ink pad.  I then sprinkled clear embossing powder onto the image, and melted it with my heat gun.  Voila!

Here we have the bird again, but this time she's very sparkly!  The photo does not do it justice - glitter never photographs well.  I deliberately made one edge of the card shorter than the other and stuck in some co-ordinating DSP along the edge for fun.

My little butterfly was also glittered up using the same technique as the bird - stamped in Versamark, then pixie pink ink, then onto the whisper white cardstock.  I then sprinkled on Heat'n Stick powder, melted it until it was sticky, and sprinkled over Dazzling Diamonds glitter, and gave it a quick final blast with the heat gun to set it.   Can you get any girlier than a pink, glittery butterfly?  

Finally, here's the card my 6 year old son made with me earlier this month to send to his best friend for Halloween.  Didn't he do a great job?  I drew the tree and skull, he did the rest.

Finally some cards and things

Today is a pupil-free day, so a long weekend for the kids, hooray!   I did manage to carve out some crafting time yesterday (11:00pm) so I could finish my sister Bridget's box of gift cards she commissioned me to make.  In case you are reading this Bid - hope you like them!

Here is the box (apologies for the dreadful photo taken at 11:00pm):

And the gift cards to go inside.  The brief was black. white and silver.  Simple but elegant.  I used the Baroque Motifs stamp set and it worked very well with such a pared-down colour scheme.

Then I made a few cards for kids as there are a few birthdays in our family at this time of year:

With the "Ahoy, Matey" stamp set:

 Now a girly one made with "One of a Kind" - I added some bling with heat 'n stick powder and Dazzling Diamonds glitter.   I had pictured this card completely differently before I made it, but this is how it ended up!  

Finally, my eldest son was invited to a classmate's birthday party, so I made the wrapping paper and matching gift card.  The invitation had a rocket ship on it, so I went with the space theme with the only rocket stamp I have, a cute clear acrylic stamp that I got in the cheapie bin at my local scrap shop.  I can't recall the manufacturer, but when I do I'll edit and post.  Hmmm, I've said that before, haven't I?

I love making wrapping paper to go with the cards I've made!  So easy and looks great (well, I think so anyway!).  I have a big roll of butcher's paper from IKEA that I use and I also found a big roll of white paper from that chain craft shop Riot.   I never have to buy wrapping paper (or cards) again!